An ever-increasing demand is being placed on the natural resources of the world, and it is now apparent that conservation of natural resources must be practiced whenever possible. Natural and man-made gases which are piped to residences and businesses for heating and cooking are included in the precious resources that must be preserved for the future. At the present time the ignition of gas in household appliances is achieved chiefly by a continuously burning pilot flame. While the gas that is consumed by any given pilot flame is small, the total amount of the gas that is consumed by all of the pilot flames in all of the appliances in a country or in the world is a large and unnecessary use of our precious gas resources.
In order to eliminate the burning of gas for pilot flames, it is necessary merely to provide an electrical ignition circuit which is synchronized with the opening of the valve so that the gas can be ignited by a spark or an arc. However, the major appliance and valve manufacturers who make gas valves have perfected the design of their valves over a period of years. The design of new gas valves could be undertaken to comply with the necessity of mounting an electrical switch on them for electrical ignition, but this would probably increase the price of the appliance to the customer and would likely delay the introduction of such devices. On the other hand, the electrical switch manufacturers could certainly provide a separate electrical switch housing for each type of gas valve that is manufactured. Again, the cost to the consumer would likely be increased. Moreover, it is desirable to be able to convert valves in existing applications to electrical ignition without requiring modification of the valve already being used.
The leading types of gas valves for gas household appliances are all of the same general size, but they are manufactured in a variety of shapes and they each have a different front panel. Logically, then, it would be expected that each of the gas valves would require a different type of mounting means to mount an electrical switch on it. The present invention, however, provides a mounting means for an electrical switch which allows the same electrical switch to be inserted on the five types of gas valves which constitute the vast majority of the valves that are currently used on gas appliances in the United States. It is estimated the switch of the present invention will be mountable on from 70% to 80% of the gas valves that are now in use in the United States without modification of the valve or the switch housing except for a very slight modification of the front plate of one of these types of valves.